Two former Charleston Newspapers sportswriters are among the five graduates of Marshall University's W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications who are being inducted into the school's Hall of Fame this fall.
Mike Cherry and Jody Jividen, as well as Charles Bailey, Chad Pennington and Peter Ruest, officially will be inducted during a Sept. 23 ceremony.
Cherry, a 1980 SOJMC graduate, was an award-winning sportswriter who worked for the Charleston Gazette, the Charleston Daily Mail and for Florida Today. For most of his career in West Virginia, he covered Marshall and West Virginia University sports. He also worked in the Marshall University Athletic Department after graduation and later freelanced for The Sporting News. He died of cancer in 2010 at the age of 54.
Jividen, a 1981 SOJMC graduate, was an award-winning sportswriter for the Charleston Daily Mail. He covered everything from high school sports to Marshall and West Virginia University athletics to the 1996 Summer Olympics. He later became sports editor and city editor of the paper. He died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 44.
Bailey is a 1974 SOJMC bachelor's graduate and a 1985 master's graduate who is a professor in the SOJMC and faculty manager of WMUL-FM.
Pennington is a 2000 SOJMC graduate best known as a standout quarterback for the Marshall Thundering Herd and for his time in the NFL with the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, but the Rhodes Scholar finalist spent a season as an NFL analyst for Fox Sports.
Ruest is a 1997 SOJMC graduate who currently is vice president and account director at Energy BBDO, a leading advertising and marketing company.
More details about the Sept. 23 induction ceremony will be released by the university at a later date.